


By the pricking of my thumbs

by grelleswife



Series: Kuroshitsuji Underappreciated Characters Week 2020 [2]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Art, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Psychic Abilities, Violet's in a poly relationship with the other members of the P4 but that's not the main focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26567164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grelleswife/pseuds/grelleswife
Summary: "Gregory Violet’s hands knew more than the rest of him did. It frightened him, sometimes."Violet is a gifted artist, but few suspect that his talents verge on the supernatural.
Series: Kuroshitsuji Underappreciated Characters Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915006
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	By the pricking of my thumbs

**Author's Note:**

> This oneshot is based on my headcanon that Violet has limited psychic abilities. Hence, the descriptions of his powers and backstory spring from my own imagination rather than the manga.
> 
> The title is taken from the second witch's famous line in Act IV, scene 1 of the Scottish play.

Gregory Violet’s hands knew more than the rest of him did. It frightened him, sometimes.

He’d always been _weird_ —a child who played by himself in the shadows and overlooked corners and silently stared at grownups who tried to engage him in pointless chatter. Unlike most boys he knew, who preferred riding horses or playing cricket beneath the garish sunlight, Gregory loved to draw and paint. He felt like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat when he turned a blank easel or piece of sketch paper into something beautiful.

He was damn good at it, too. So much so that his parents hired a private tutor to further cultivate his gift when he was still a young slip of a thing.

But the Knowing ran deeper than talent. It showed him the truth about a person, even if they hid it from the rest of the world.

When an aunt asked him to draw her picture, he sketched her with eyes closed, holding a bouquet of black roses…and a cloaked, hooded figure in the background pressing the tip of its scythe to her chest. By the time he finished, Gregory was shaking from head to toe. He’d meant to make something nice for his auntie. Instead, his hands had taken on a mind of their own, and the result was this creepy picture. As Gregory mutely passed it to her, dread crept into his soul like spilled ink seeping through once-pristine paper.

Auntie Beatrice had gone white as a sheet. The way she looked at him was branded into his memory—like Gregory was a venomous serpent coiled at her foot, ready to strike. His thumbs tingled, and he Knew that this would be the last time he saw her alive.

Less than two weeks later, Gregory’s parents took him aside and told him in hushed voices that Auntie Beatrice had gone to sing with the angels. She’d always had a weak heart. So sudden, probably too quick for her to feel any pain. Found collapsed on the living room floor. In a better place now, God rest her soul. And so on and so forth. He blinked back wordlessly while his hands ached with knowledge he had neither desired nor asked for.

That was only the beginning, of course.

He drew an older relative on his father’s side, of vague and uncertain connection. The face this cousin presented to his peers was bland and affable, but Gregory rendered it with an avaricious sneer, and drew the man’s hands clutching thick wads of 100-pound notes. Gregory’s fingers twitched on the rare occasions he and his cousin attended the same social gatherings, and the boy avoided him out of instinctive distaste. One day, Gregory's father received word that this cousin had been arrested for embezzlement after swindling his employer out of thousands. Given just how vague and uncertain the scoundrel’s ties with their family were, the Violets had little trouble distancing themselves from his misdemeanors. That wasn’t what bothered Gregory, however. He shouldn’t have known about his cousin’s crimes in the first place. There was no rational explanation for it.

Then there was the time his hands Knew to paint Mrs. Bledsoe, one of his mother’s closest friends. The cheerful society matron was beloved for her glittering wit and charm. Gregory’s portrait told a different story: Mrs. Bledsoe slumped in defeat on the floor with her head in her hands while a hairy, gargantuan creature pressed down upon her, stymieing any attempt to rise. It made Gregory’s thumbs prick, as though he’d plunged his hands into a tangle of briars. Mrs. Bledsoe vanished shortly thereafter. The official account was that her health had taken an unexpected turn for the worse, and she’d gone to the seaside for rest and fresh air. However, Gregory heard his parents whisper that Mrs. Bledsoe had tried to poison herself, but botched the job miserably and been found before death could claim her. Her relations promptly sent her to the nearest asylum to avoid the reek of scandal that would otherwise taint their family name. His mother demanded that he burn the portrait, and Gregory quietly complied. 

He just wanted to create; nothing more, nothing less. Why were these painful secrets foisted upon _him_ instead of someone else? His hands didn’t Know the answer to that.

Thankfully, the Knowing was not always cruel. Sometimes, it merely nudged him towards what the subject of a painting loved best, like foxhunting or playing the pianoforte. Or it helped him capture the person’s finest qualities: A kind, generous spirit, unwavering courage, a smile that could mend the most broken of hearts. More often than not, Gregory’s brush or pencil was guided by his own whims, while his bizarre power lay dormant until it next saw fit to manifest.

Regardless of whether the Knowing revealed delights or horrors to him, Gregory quickly learned not to talk about it with others. Grownups dismissed his claims, scolding the boy for “telling stories”; his peers either shrank back in apprehension or jeered that he was a freak—and that label was thrown at him often enough as it was. He didn’t give a damn about being normal (whatever the hell that meant), but he didn’t see the point in causing a stir. Gregory detested fuss and bother. Easier to retreat, keep his head down, and remain detached from those whose hands knew nothing.

Gregory didn’t breathe a word about this gift to his schoolmates at Weston, not even the three boys he loved more deeply than art itself. Since there were oddballs galore in Violet Wolf, his eccentricities didn’t draw undue attention, and the secrets he had yet to fully comprehend remained safely hidden in the background.

Since the _incident_ with Derrick, however, his hands ached constantly from a wrongness that had slithered its way into their school like the serpent invading Eden. He and the other prefects were fighting to uphold Weston’s hallowed traditions, but the Knowing whispered that it was futile. Gregory couldn’t escape the sense of impending doom that wrapped around him like a shroud. That doom wore Ciel Phantomhive’s face.

Of course, there were practical reasons to distrust the new student. He poked his nose where he shouldn’t, and asked prying questions that would have been better left unsaid…but Gregory Knew there was more to it than that. The boy's heavenly blue eye held a darkness deep as night. It gave him gooseflesh and sent pain slicing through his thumbs like a knife's blade.

At the Swan Gazebo, while Phantomhive doggedly pursued the subject of Derrick Arden (why couldn’t he leave well enough alone?), Gregory’s hands compelled him to draw a hideous monster. Yet the foul beast wasn’t pursuing him or the other prefects. Instead, its claws reached for Phantomhive. When he looked at the drawing, his fingers throbbed as fiercely as if he’d scalded them, and he nearly dropped his charcoal.

Gregory didn’t understand the Knowing. He couldn’t foretell the disaster awaiting the P4, nor could he guess what ravenous evil sought to devour the Queen’s Watchdog. Still, his hands Knew something wicked this way came…and Gregory trusted them enough to shiver with dread.


End file.
